reina
by S.N. Rainsworth
Summary: leo kisses her hand, and she thinks that they're just a little too lonely to go on. leo/reyna. drabble.


**.note**: so basically I take the two people who have the least interaction and the most trivial personalities and smash them together and they don't work out well. which is why I love this pairing so much; it's so...not fitting. like a discord. music to my ears.

(this is subject to become a drabble series, just so you know.)

/

Leo Valdez is an enigma, Reyna thinks.

As the days go by, Reyna sees the changes shaping her life; Jason leaves earlier from meetings, Percy's eyes are distant as the Senate talks (but really, that's what happens all the time, so no change there). Suddenly the Greeks aren't as bad as she thought, but it might be because her heart beats still for the wrong person(s).

Eventually, as she retires for the nights spent working (this camp, this life, her home) she begins to notice that sleeping is harder at night; while there is no worry to claim her mind, it wanders, wanders to the brief vestiges of loneliness that she dares not think about.

When it's time for the corresponding camps to have their discussions once again, she sees from a distance the Greek airships landing and silently, promises to herself that she would not feel the way she feels.

Most of them just fade away after a while, walking to the opposite sides of New Rome and spending their time together their. Percy nods to her in respect and his eyes are haunted, she thinks, haunted by all the things he's seen that he wishes he hasn't. Annabeth gives her a small, friendly smile, but her face is pained and she looks old - terribly, terribly old. Reyna thinks that they've been through too much to rest, backs hunched and hands pressed against each other silently - just like they were right before their drop into hell.

Piper is quiet, kaleidoscope eyes downtrodden but curved when Jason puts an arm around her shoulders. Reyna swallows a bitter pill (and hopes that it can kill her), goes up to them and informs them of the rooms they'll be staying in.

Frank and Hazel, her dearest Romans, stand straight with fear when they see her; fear and a sort of grudging pity, as they look at her and her sunken eyes. She waves them off with a hero's leisure.

When she goes off back to the area of the _Via Principalis_, a voice stops her. "You won't stay a while to greet me, _chica_? I'm hurt."

Reyna turns around, lips pursed. "You are to address me as Reyna, and nothing else," she all but snarls. Leo grins at her from his angle, eyes dangerously gleaming.

"Your room is next to Jason's in the west wing," she continues on, because Reyna will not be affected by a son of Vulcan this way. "Find him and he will tell you the exact building. It's not my problem if you weren't here for the designations."

"So many big words. Can't you just point? I'll shoot right off."

Reyna ignores him and continues walking, her dogs slinking around her legs as she goes.

Unfortunately, Leo follows right after, jogging after her. He smells like oil and the coppery tang of metal. "I don't think I can find Jason right now - last time I saw him, he was off careening with Piper," he adds, watching her shoulders stiffen. "So I'm just going to stay here until they stop the lovefest."

And by here, Reyna soon learns, means by her side 24/7.

/

It's not possible for Reyna to become annoyed in such little time, but then if she's counting properly, she has known Leo for nearly a year now. It's not much for her to get annoyed at.

Leo barges into her apartment as soon she begins to relax, brings along with him the pleasures that she never told him; hot chocolate, old Spanish movies, and more of that expensive oil that her hounds seem to love.

In that way, she accepts Leo - even for a moment, even with his maddening grin - as he sits beside her on the couch and puts in the old tapes. The pictures are faded and the characters are too dramatic, but Reyna's eyes are glued and her mouth pulls in accordance with the sequence of events.

She doesn't notice, but Leo glances at her from the corner of his eye, never really watching. In his mind, all he thinks about is Reyna, about the curve of her cheek and the dark ink of her hair, her eyes, and how much he'd pay to see her smile.

Leo remembers that he always falls for girls that are too out of his league, and his smile is bitter - just until Reyna turns to him with the demand for another tape to be put in.

He has this, he thinks. This is something between the two of them and for some reason, he's not willing to change that.

/

The festivities are endless on Leo's eighteenth birthday, when half the night is spent with Leo drinking too much soda and stuffing his face with all the food he can get. Reyna sloshes her glass of cider, bored, wondering why she came when obviously this wasn't her place of expertise.

She sees the people that she has known for years, has maybe loved once or twice, but right now they're all strangers.

Eventually they all leave until she's the only one left, head lolling up and down from the sofa as the room they're in reflects the mess of their day. He stares at Reyna from his position upside down, with those dark eyes she can't get rid off.

"Come here, _reina_," he murmurs, beckons her with the Spanish curl of his tongue. He calls her a queen - it hasn't been the first time he's done so. Whenever he's serious or in one of his brooding moods, he calls her his queen. And Reyna's been there often enough to know.

She doesn't follow orders from others often, but her feet take her to Leo's side.

"I killed my mother," he says to her, and she glances at him out of the corner of her eye. Leo continues, head spinning, eyes bright. Reyna sits on the floor, legs folded. "Gaea tried to talk to me when I was younger. Got freaked out and burned the place. She died in that fire." He sniffs.

Reyna gives him a questionable look, ignores the flare of pain in her chest.

"I'm telling you, _reina_, because even though it's my birthday and I'm supposed to be happy, I feel like I wanna cry." He closes his eyes. "And you, you know sadness better than anyone, right?"

Leo hurts her. He hurts her with his words and his actions, with the distance in his eyes and the slight retraction of his hand. He hurts her by treating himself like an outsider, and quietly, with the hate that Reyna has inside of her for him (that isn't really hate at all) she brushes the tear on his cheek.

So much pain.

Leo kisses her hand, and she thinks that they're just a little too lonely to go on.


End file.
